This is the base Nerves System configuration for the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| CPU | 1.2 GHz quad-core ARMv8 |
| Memory | 1 GB DRAM |
| Storage | MicroSD |
| Linux kernel | 4.4.50 w/ Raspberry Pi patches |
| IEx terminal | HDMI and USB keyboard (can be changed to UART) |
| GPIO, I2C, SPI | Yes - Elixir ALE |
| ADC | No |
| PWM | Yes, but no Elixir support |
| UART | 1 available - ttyS0 |
| Camera | Yes - via rpi-userland |
| Ethernet | Yes |
| WiFi | Yes - Nerves.Network |
| Bluetooth | Not supported yet |
WiFi modules almost always require proprietary firmware to be loaded for them to work. The
Linux kernel handles this and firmware blobs are maintained in the
linux-firmware project. The firmware for the built-in WiFi module on the RPi3
hasn't made it to the linux-firmware project nor Buildroot, so it is included
here in a rootfs_overlay overlay directory. The original firmware files came from github:RPi-Distro/firmware-nonfree.
There's a subtle coupling between the nerves_system_br version and the Linux
kernel version used here. nerves_system_br provides the versions of
rpi-userland and rpi-firmware that get installed. I prefer to match them to
the Linux kernel to avoid any issues. Unfortunately, none of these are tagged
by the Raspberry Pi Foundation so I either attempt to match what's in Raspbian
or take versions of the repositories that have similar commit times.
Image credit: This image is from the Fritzing parts library.